LXXXVI. GNU Readline

Introduction

The readline() functions implement an interface
to the GNU Readline library. These are functions that provide
editable command lines. An example being the way Bash allows you
to use the arrow keys to insert characters or scroll through
command history. Because of the interactive nature of this
library, it will be of little use for writing Web applications,
but may be useful when writing scripts meant
using PHP from the command line.

You can also use this functions with the libedit library, a non-GPL
replacement for the readline library. The libedit library is BSD
licensend and available for download from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/libedit/.

Installation

To use this functions you must compile the CGI or CLI version of PHP
with readline support. You need to configure PHP
--with-readline[=DIR].
In order you want to use the libedit readline replacement, configure PHP
--with-libedit[=DIR].